Continued from Part Six...
Sometimes, I expect to walk down Camden market and see retailers selling shirts with Stu Ungar’s ghostly image plastered on the front, immortalised in print like Che Guevara or Diego Maradona. In poker, Ungar holds a similar status, but it’s one that reflects his fast lifestyle as well as his ability to play cards.
Like George Best in football, or Alex Higgins in snooker, people embrace a natural talent. They adore those who can step up to the plate without a second thought, without having to work to achieve their goals. They are entertainers, often distracted by external influences, unpredictable, and open to ‘falling off the rails’. They may be the best at their vocation, but they can still succumb to their many vices and allow those others to surpass them. In life, they are losers, slowly, but surely killing themselves, and so when they win a title, we hope that it will signify the first step to recovery.
The final player I spoke to was Chris Bjorin. A Swedish poker pro now living in London, Bjorin is the anti-Ungar: he’s quiet, reserved, sensible and tight. You’ll rarely see him in interviews or on TV, and despite his $4.6 million in live tournament winnings, he’s a name that hardly anyone in the industry knows. But, deep into a tournament, there he’ll be, silently plugging away with his arms folded as those around him continue to underestimate him. If ever there were an award for the most underrated player in the game, then Bjorin would be a standout nominee.
“I first played with him in the late eighties in Vegas in cash games,” he started as I caught up with him in his local jaunt, the Vic. “He was a very successful cash game player, but at that time abusing drugs, which probably affected the way he played. I played him heads-up for 36 hours the first time we clashed. We played three games: Pot Limit Omaha, Limit Seven-Card Stud and Limit Hold’em. He had the way best on it on those Limit games because I’d never really played them before. In the Pot Limit Omaha, he wasn’t that good, but his best game was No Limit Hold’em,
“The best memory I have of him is when he won the World Series in ‘97. I played for two days at the same table as him and he played very well that time. He raised 75, 80 percent of pots, which I thought was fantastic. The only pots I won were when I reraised him before the flop and he threw his cards away. I knew he couldn’t have a hand every time.
“He disappeared during the nineties, he came to tournaments now and then, but I didn’t see him around much. He was at his best before I met him and I learned a lot from him from tournament play in Hold’em. People played another way of poker that time, not aggressive, just sitting there trying to play hands. They were intimidated by him and found it hard to adjust. There weren’t many people who played like him, just a couple of others like John Bonetti.”
But, of course, the advent of Chris Moneymaker and poker’s second wind saw a change in the game that few could have anticipated, but it was one that meant the styles of players like Bonetti and Ungar were now commonplace. They were ahead of their time, and now that time had finally arrived. With that in mind, I always wondered how Ungar would have coped with the change, if he’d have adapted his game in accordance, or simply remained stubborn like so many of the failing old guard.
“Yes, he’d be a winner today,” declared Mel Judah adamantly. “He’d be a winning player against any generation,” added Suriner Sunar. “Stuey could adjust to any game,” commented Padraig Parkinson. “He’d have no problem against the current lot.” “There’s no doubt in my mind that he would have been the biggest superstar poker player the world had ever seen,” concluded Mike Sexton.
Bjorin, on the other hand, was less convinced: “He was a good reader of players, and I would have liked to have met him in his prime years when he wasn’t a heavy abuser of drugs, but people didn’t play very well back then, and he just took advantage of that. The standard is so much better now. He was a great player, and I imagine that he’d be a top 20 player now, but there are players as good as him playing the circuit at the moment. He was aggressive, but you can find 20 players who are as aggressive and as talented as he was. He’d still be winning tournaments, though, if he were still around, especially the Ungar of young.”
But it’s not just the standard that has changed, but the entire landscape of the game. Now, instead of having to search for action, there’s a game available 24/7. Casinos host around-the-clock cardrooms, there’s a festival virtually every other week, and with the arrival of online poker, instant gratification is constantly at your finger tips – for a poker fanatic, the current climate is a dream come true. Whether Ungar would have prospered or not is debatable. Donnacha O’Dea suggests that the more intense schedule would keep him occupied, and steer him away from his vices, whilst others claim that online gambling, the ‘baller’ fashions, and increased staking would have seen him dig an even deeper hole.
What I think few would challenge is that Ungar would be winning tournaments. Whether he was broke heading in or not, his talent would shine through, as it did before. He’d also be destined for media stardom, lauded like Archie Karas as a gambling legend and followed intrepidly by the upcoming generation. They would celebrate his degeneracy, his drinking, drug-taking and gambling, and likely encourage him to undertake it even more. He would be sponsored, maybe by one of the ‘big boys’, and backed into tournaments by corporations as Billy Baxter did for decades before. He’d be on all the shows: High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, WSOP. All the while, he’d be looking on, like a rabbit in the headlights and wondering how the game changed so quickly and developed into the behemoth it is now. If he had his wits about him, he would be profiting heavily, but he wouldn’t, and the piranhas around him would be taking advantage of his name.
But this is merely speculation. The sad fact is that we’ll never know the full extent of Ungar’s capabilities, or how far he would have reached during a poker boom. In late November, 1998, Ungar was found dead in a cheap motel, fully clothed and with just $800 to his name. Autopsy reports concluded that although there were traces of drugs in his system, Ungar had died from a heart condition resulting from extended periods of substance abuse. It was a sad end to what had been a sad life.
In Ungar’s day, celebrity wasn’t embraced like it is today. Yes, there were players like Amarillo Slim and Phil Hellumth who actively sought fame, but for most, keeping a low profile was paramount, and one was certainly never considered a global ‘superstar’. Post-death, however, and Ungar is treated like a saint, canonised and worshipped by the masses. “It was only when he won in ‘97 that he was regarded the best player around,” explained Sunar. “Now he’s dead, he has almost legendary status as the best ever.” As seems to be the case with cultural icons like John Lennon, Kurt Cobain and Jimmy Hendrix, an early death cemented Ungar’s legacy, and perhaps made him even more famous, and celebrated, than he ever would have been had he lived.
As names such as Jack Strauss, Sailor Roberts and Jack Keller become lost in time, the name of Stu Ungar seems to display incredible longevity, remaining etched in the minds of players young and old. The modern generation, who will have never met or played with him, will likely know his name above many veterans still alive today, Ungar’s story one that perhaps strikes a chord with those who welcome degeneracy in others. A film, documentary, biography, hall of fame entry – Ungar remains a prominent part of poker, despite his demise.
Former Mirage Casino sports book director Jimmy Vaccaf once said, “He [Ungar] was the face of poker. Even in death, he’s the face of poker. People want to constantly talk about him.” Even today, as I write, Ungar’s legend is being discussed in a thread on Two Plus Two titled ‘Stu Ungar – Winner or Loser?’ As expected, the general consensus is one that even Mike Sexton agreed with: “Winner at poker, loser at life.” One poster simply wrote: “Who’d want to live his life?” Despite the high octane, Ungar lived a life of misery in which money was merely a tool to pass the time, yet it’s a life that we have placed on a pedestal, to be praised and idolised by the adoring masses. It’s a life that we consider exciting, romantic, and cool, yet it’s a life that none of us would enjoy if we were to experience it ourselves.
Over the course of this Series, I have spoken to a number of different players who encountered Ungar, and although there are minor discrepancies here and there, or the odd disagreement, the message received was one echoed by a Two Plus Two member: “He was a tortured genius who couldn’t overcome his demons.” Ungar was one hell of a player, someone who, although suffered from impatience and tit and was open to imploding at the case tables, was one of the best players this game will ever see. He was a warm-hearted person who yearned action. He revolutionised the game, and made an impact that no one will ever forget, but, despite this, and because of his weaknesses, he was always an underdog. Everybody loves a good underdog story. Sadly, Ungar was an underdog of life who never truly triumphed.
This is the concluding part of I Played Stu Ungar. Thanks for reading.
Previous articles:
Introduction: An Icon of the Game
Part One: The Fall & Fall
Part Two: A Freak of Nature
Part Three: An Appetite for Action
Part Four: Jekyll & Hyde
Part Five: A Hand to Remember
Part Six: Mike McDermott